Murderer in the Flower of Death (19 page)

“…You’re wrong. It’s not like that. Even so, there is one reason, but…” Turning her face away, Eiri hesitated.

“But?” Kyousuke urged her on.

Still not meeting his eyes, she continued. “…Look. You were thrown in here on a false charge, right? The world you came from, that place…do you want to go back? Say that starting now, for the next three years, you carry on behaving as the Warehouse Butcher and endure this life…even then, the place that you think you want to return to, the place where you belong, will it be there for you?”

“—Yes, it will be.” Kyousuke held the image of his beloved family in his mind and felt the strength fill his voice and his fists. He wouldn’t be broken until he had seen Ayaka again, until he had apologized to her. He would absolutely not give in.

“……Really.” Eiri’s eyes had clouded over, her voice a soft mumble. Pursing her lips and carving wrinkles into her forehead, she looked extremely indecisive.

Kyousuke stayed silent and continued to watch her attentively. Ten seconds passed, then twenty, then thirty— “…I get it. If that’s the case, then I have to tell you.”

In the brilliance of Eiri’s open eyes, Kyousuke gasped unconsciously. They held a cold, ruthless light. Her icy-sharp gaze seemed to pierce him through. “First, you’ll forgive me for starting from the conclusion, but… Even supposing that you do stick it out for the three years,
you will never be able to go back to your former world
.”

“……Huh? No, I’m going back. I mean, this place is to rehabilitate murdere—”

“—Wrong.” Cutting off Kyousuke’s words, Eiri told him the truth.

His hope was a spider’s thread that he clung to in this hellish purgatory, filled with the clamor of murderers. She delivered the truth that would cut the thread and send him tumbling to the bottom of the abyss.

“Purgatorium Remedial Academy is not a school that rehabilitates murderers… It’s a place where they take murderers who already have experience killing and retrain them, correcting any weaknesses or flaws—
It’s a vocational school for raising professional killers.
”

“Purgatorium Remedial Academy is a vocational school for killers…?”

It was a narrow room, illuminated by thin rays of light streaming in from a deeply recessed window. Seated behind a massive ebony desk, flanked by a pair of tall twin bookshelves, a cigarette-smoking figure sat, backlit, face shrouded in shadow. Somehow, he could tell the figure was smiling.

The silhouette chuckled quietly at Kyousuke, who still stood in the doorway, breathing raggedly. “And just where did you hear such a thing? Well, I can hazard a guess, but… First of all, settle down. You heard this story, and you flew directly here to find me, is that it? What a lively pig you are to disregard the fact that you would be immediately disciplined.”

“Cut the crap, Kurumiya…just answer the question.” Growling, Kyousuke took a step forward. He couldn’t hide the anger in his voice.

As the silhouette—as Kurumiya—had said, what he had heard from Eiri had sent him flying out of the infirmary in a fury. He’d needed to see Kurumiya, needed to know if it was true. He’d found her, finally, on the fourth floor of the new school building, in one of the staff rooms granted to each teacher at the Purgatorium Remedial Academy.

Kyousuke tried to calm his labored breathing. “Is what I heard the truth? Answer me! Answer me now!” he demanded. “Even if I do survive to graduation,
I won’t return to normal society, but the criminal underworld
? What the hell is that about?!”

Unshaken by Kyousuke’s angry shouts, Kurumiya leisurely exhaled a puff of purple smoke. Pressing the butt of her cigarette into the ashtray, she stood. “I thought I told you on the very first day of class, Kamiya? Our objective here at the Purgatorium Remedial Academy is to beat the corrupted nature of murderers into shape and completely reform them. However…”

Making her way around the imposing desk, Kurumiya slowly approached Kyousuke. In her hand, she gripped the familiar iron pipe in place of the cigarette. Before long, she was looking up at him, grinning; it was obvious that she was enjoying his response immensely. “I don’t recall saying that if you graduated you could return to the free world. And I
do
hate lying… I speak nothing but the truth! It’s as you said, Kamiya—this place is precisely such an institution.”

“Ehh?! You’re full of shit!!” Furious, Kyousuke grabbed Kurumiya’s collar in both hands, lifting her petite body off the ground.

Kurumiya’s expression did not change. She still stared at Kyousuke with an amused expression. “Oh, scary, scary…heh-heh-heh! Are you thinking about killing me? Hmmm? Too bad that’s impossible…
for a punk who’s never killed before!
”

“Wh-why…how do you know that—?”

“Humans are fundamentally incapable of murder.”

Still standing on her tiptoes, Kurumiya held Kyousuke’s gaze, unflinching. Ignoring his wide-eyed question, she continued, expression calm and focused. “That’s one of the ideas that forms the foundation for the theory of ‘Killology.’ It’s because in every animal, there are instinctual mechanisms working to defend against the extinction of the species. In fact, it’s said that when training soldiers on the battlefield, the most serious challenge is the problem of how to rid them of this aversion toward ‘killing one’s own.’ That’s how difficult it is, the act of killing another person. However—” Kurumiya’s smile grew, taking on a fiendish quality, small white teeth peeking like fangs from the corners of her upturned lips.

“The murderers gathered here are different.
They’ve already overcome their aversions.
There are those who killed on an impulse, as well as psychopaths and the ones who are bred for it… No matter what type they are, if you can get them to go off once, the rest is easy.
If you
can reform them so that they’re easy to handle
, then you’re good to go. Killers are very talented people, you know!”

“Wha……?” The hands wrapped around Kurumiya’s neck slackened, letting her slip free. Staggering back in retreat, Kyousuke groaned, overcome with surprise. “What the hell…? You collect murderers to use like tools?”

“Yep, you’ve got it! Of course, there are exceptions. Like Rusty Nail, who, despite being born into a long line of assassins, isn’t able to kill, and…virgins who have never killed, like you, Kamiya.”

Kyousuke snapped back to reality when she spoke his name. If the students had been collected on the premise that “they already had experience killing people,” then there shouldn’t have been any reason for Kyousuke to have been thrown into a place like this.
But here I am, so why?

“That’s right, you’ve never killed anyone. I knew from the very beginning that the thing about you killing twelve people was a false charge… If you want to know why, it’s because from the start the crimes that you are supposed to have committed have been
crimes contrived by our board chairman for the purpose of having you charged
.”

“……Huh? What the…what the hell do you mean by that?! Why on purpose…?”

“Heh-heh-heh… Isn’t it obvious? He laid eyes on your aberrant physical abilities. The board wanted you badly enough to fabricate your crimes… Especially since your limiter is still in place, so depending on how they decide to train you…they could make you into just about anything. For example, if I were to
corner you in a situation where you had no option but to kill
…or something.”

Kurumiya reached into her jacket pocket and retrieved something, holding it up for him to see. He recognized the crude shape, shining with a dark luster, as Shinji’s revolver.

“…Really, today was so strange. I had hoped that if you took a beating from a group of murderers, you might knock off one or two of them in the course of self-defense, but…an unexpected obstacle appeared.
I went out of my way to put lethal weapons on the black market
, and none of those assholes even used them! They were as useless as Rusty Nail’s threats.”

“……?! That was your doing, Kurumiya?!”

I guess when you think about who could possibly put that many lethal
weapons into circulation—
Clearly, it couldn’t have been a student; a teacher had to have done it. It was like some sort of horrible joke.

Kyousuke moved to grab Kurumiya again, but she pacified him with a wave of the revolver. “Now, wait a minute. Calm down. I may be a teacher, but I’m on the bottom rung here. I’m just following orders from above. The ones you should blame are the chairman of this institution and…yourself. Blame your excessive physical strength
and your own foolishness at committing such flashy acts of violence that your strength became well-known even in the criminal underworld
… You see, Slayer? Or is it Megadeath, Kyousuke Kamiya?”

“Wha…?!” He froze, fingers clutching Kurumiya’s lapel, and clenched his teeth. He’d been certain that, until now, he’d only thrown down with street hoodlums and small-time punks. He had not even the slightest association with the yakuza or any other organized gang.

“…It’s
my
fault?” In the beginning, he’d only raised a hand to protect the people important to him, but before long, he’d come to rely on his fists above all else and had forgotten how to back down…

And then, ultimately, he was the one who hurt them. Ayaka, who he was supposed to protect over everything else, and—hurt himself, too. It was all because he had wielded his power without grasping its true extent.

“Are you saying that this is all my fault…? Dammit…!”

Kyousuke ground his molars, hands opening and then clenching into tight fists. There was nothing he could do. Not knowing what or who to blame, his fury had no direction, no outlet. It writhed and roiled in his gut.

“Oh, that’s right…,” Kurumiya added. “There’s one thing that I forgot to tell you.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

“…What is it?” Kyousuke growled, frowning. Kurumiya wore a sadistic smile.

“It’s about the disguise that you were forced to wear—the disgusting mask of the Warehouse Butcher—and the asshole who was originally supposed to wear it. That person is a psycho murderer who thinks nothing about killing people by the dozens or hundreds, but… Do you know who I’m talking about, Kamiya?”

“…Huh? Do I know? As if I would know that!!” There was no way that someone he knew just happened to have killed hundreds of people
without a second thought.
If I had to pick…probably Bob—but even for her, a three-digit kill count seems unlikely.

“…Hmm, really? You don’t know?” Kurumiya sounded disappointed. “But it’s one of those
female students you’ve been getting along so well with
your whole time here. Heh-heh-heh…isn’t that great? If you can’t figure it out, I’ll tell you. One day, you beat up twelve guys in an abandoned warehouse, and then the one who smashed them, and broke them, and crushed them, and tore them apart, and gouged them, and toyed with them, eviscerating them before killing and killing and killing and killing and killing and killing them all, that mass murderer was—”

Kurumiya’s big round eyes narrowed.

And then, Kyousuke heard it.

The one person’s name that he had least wanted to hear.

“—
Renko Hikawa!
The girl with the gas mask that you’re always so friendly with! She’s the Murder Maid, a real veteran killer. She’s not just the top of her class, she’s the lethal instrument at the top of your whole year.”

She’s lying.

Running through the deserted school building, Kyousuke’s mind screamed.

She’s lying, she’s lying, she’s lying, she’s lying, she’s lying, she’s lying!

The Renko he knew—a psycho killer wouldn’t think anything of having a kill count in triple digits? That was completely impossible. It should be impossible. He didn’t want it to be possible.

“Fine, why don’t you go ask her yourself? Isn’t she up on the roof? Heh-heh-heh…”

As soon as Kurumiya had said the words, Kyousuke had flown from her staff room, running like a madman. His pulse pounded so violently that it hurt.

It must be a lie, Renko…please say it’s not true! Please laugh it off like you always do!!

The closer he came to his destination, the stronger his suspicion of Renko grew. The mysterious girl who wore her gas mask twenty-four hours a day. Her real face and her real nature—Kyousuke knew neither. Even if her eyes glittered with murderous intent despite her easy, friendly manner, Kyousuke wouldn’t know it. Even if she were grimacing with madness underneath the mask that laughed with a “
kksshh
,” he wouldn’t know…

“Hah…hah…geez…hah…” Standing in front of the gunmetal gray door that led to his destination, Kyousuke caught his breath. N
O
E
NTRY
was written across the portal in bright red paint, warning against access to the roof of the new school building. The lock was—open. He placed a hand on the knob and readied himself to push it open.

Bright light flooded in. Under a blue-gray sky, whipping his head around, he frantically looked for Renko. But in the narrow space enclosed by an iron fence and barbed wire, Kyousuke was alone.

“…Renko? Are you here? Heeey, Renkoooooo!” Calling her name, he paced about the small area, checking every nook and corner, all to no avail.

“…Seriously, what the hell. She’s not here…”

It seemed that Kurumiya’s prediction of Renko’s whereabouts had been off. Breathing a deep sigh of relief and disappointment, Kyousuke allowed his fraying nerves to relax a moment before—

“Oh, sorry, sorry. Looks like I kept you waiting, hmm?
Kksshh.
”

The voice came from the doorway. Kyousuke, gripping the iron fence on the opposite side of the roof, turned around quickly.

“I heard the whole story from Kurumiya. She said you had some things you wanted to ask me?”

—There stood Renko, same as always. The girl in the black gas mask, who spoke in an easygoing manner. Kyousuke was frozen in place, unable to react. So with an “ahem,” Renko pushed out her abundant breasts.

“Anyway, I’m a G cup!
Kksshh.
That’s what you wanted to ask me, isn’t it? I thought it might be pretty hard for you to speak up and ask me yourself, so I went ahead and told you. Since you made the effort to come find me, should I give you the rest of my measurements? Starting from the top, they’re—”

“Renko.”

“Hmm? What is it? You’ve got such a grim face on. It feels like you might rush on me at any moment…oh! Kyousuke, surely you weren’t scheming to do this and that, and even the other thing to me here in this deserted place—”

“—Renko!” Kyousuke shouted, unable to contain himself.

“Ah?!”

“…Quit joking around.” He glowered at her gas mask. “What I wanted to ask you has nothing to do with that.” He took a deep breath hoping to calm his ragged nerves. He gathered his strength in his clenched fists.

Perhaps picking up on the tone of the conversation, Renko grew quiet, letting out a muted “
kksshh…
” The sun slowly began to drop in the sky, and sunset painted the roof a brilliant ochre.

“Say, Renko—?” Kyousuke asked. “What I heard about your kills being in the triple digits…is that true?”